The Super Bowl In Brazil

As a kid, I always got a kick during the Super Bowl broadcast when they would switch to the international feed for a play or two. I always wondered, what it is like to watch the game in another country. Well, last night, after more than two years in Brazil, I watched my first NFL game in as long a time. Of all the sports, NFL is probably the one I miss the least, I would much rather watch an NBA or NHL game, and a NASCAR race would be awesome. On the "pay networks" they do show a good amount of NBA, and some NFL, especially on ESPN. The game was shown live on one of those networks, I think ESPN, but I got the "free feed" and that is the one I will review.

For starters, I turned the game on half way through the second quarter. I live in the northeast of Brazil, and the rest of Brazil is in DST, so we are one hour ahead of the rest of the country. When they announced the game would be on at 1 AM (we are -3 GMT, and that means I am 2 hours ahead of whatever time it is in New York when they are in DST) I totally forgot to adjust the time. What they did was broadcast the game. Just the game, plays, none of the "down time". You can't believe how much useless stuff adds to the length of the game. They stopped as soon as the play was dead, and started when the ball was snapped. The entire broadcast took an hour and a half. They only showed commercials (they showed 'local' commercials, not the ones from the regular broadcast) at halftime. They showed replays, for key plays only, and as far as the halftime show, all I got to see was "American Girl" by Tom Petty. The commentators were enjoyable. Most everything is pronounced the "same", albeit in Portuguese, sack, field goal, pass, etc, they names don't change, they are just said with an accent. Same with the player names. The best was any time a "bomb" or long pass was thrown, and they would yell "FOGO NA BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOMBAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA" which literally translates to "Fire on the bomb" but they would strech it out much like they do with a goal in soccer. The commentators were pretty informed about the NFL, they would explain the ins and outs of the game, explain rules quickly, and they really seemed to enjoy the "first down" marker that the broadcasts superimpose on the field, they would explain to the viewers that the yellow line really "does not exist", it is just there for the viewers, and that the official sport is kept with the field markers. I was impressed with the quality of the commentators and how they explained the game to the viewers, and I was really impressed that the whole broadcasts was over in less than an hour and a half.